For starters, I’m going to try to learn more about Handler this morning. It might not matter in the bigger scheme of things, but if he was Mel’s secret crush or lover, I want to know.
I also intend to find out if the creative content archive still exists and whether it contains any of Mel’s work—and I’ve decided to solicit the pesky Chip Conway’s help on that front.
And I’m going to make a trip this morning to Mohegan Park, where Riley was attacked. Maybe if I survey it with my own eyes, and everything is just as she described, it will be a final verification for me.
Sitting at the desk in my room, I do a Google search on Handler, just to see if there’s anything more to find online. He’s not on social media, so nothing to go by on that front, and there’s no media coverage of any scandals in his past—he wouldn’t be at Carter if there were. Mostly what I end up with are reviews of his poetry books, and the occasional profile accompanying them.
Interestingly, he speaks in one article about the need for a poet to live freely.Live freely to do what?I wonder.
It’s after ten when I finish, and time to phone Chip, though I end up with only voicemail. I ask him to call me as soon as possible. He’s going to mistakenly think I’ve decided to fill him in about the case, but that’s okay. Whatever it takes to have him get in touch.
After grabbing a coffee to go in the lobby, I order an Uber to take me to the park. While in the back of the car, with the cardboard coffee cup gripped between my feet on the floor, I send a text to Bas, one I’ve been mulling over since I woke up. Until now I’ve been so worried about the danger of telling Bas too much that I’ve failed to see the price I could pay for telling him too little, that it might be creating a gulf between us. I have to take a chance that our relationship can handle all of it.
Sweetheart, just wanted to say sorry about always rushing you off the phone. Things are crazy here and constantly shifting. Will tell you much more when I can and we’ll have lots of time to talk when I’m home. Xoxo
Finished, I finally glance out the window. As we zip down a street of colorful clapboard houses and still barren trees, I realize I’m almost weighted down with dread. I’m going to Mohegan Park,notPebble Creek, a place I forced myself to see once and vowed never to return to, but they’re bound to be similar.
I’m wrong, though. Stepping out of the car, I discover that this park bears little resemblance to Pebble Creek, or at the least the one seared in my memory. That park, ironically, was designed to be a woody sanctuary right in the middle of town, a place to simply wander through or view the creek from a weathered bench.
Mohegan turns out to be much more of a recreational park. I spot a large playground, a sandbox, and a turquoise-painted spray pool, all of which send other kinds of memories surging back. When Mel was young, I used to take her after work, and weather permitting, to a small, nondescript playground in Tribeca. She particularly liked the sandbox, but not for any reason other kids did.
“Do you want to build something, honey?” I asked her once when she was probably five or so. “You have your shovel.”
“No, that’s okay. I just want to sit here and pretend.”
“Pretend what?”
“That this is the Land of the Sand. And I’m the ruler.”
It’s chilly today, and most of the people here are moms or sitters with kids, braving the unspring-like weather to use the playground. I pause and survey my surroundings. An older man is jogging farther ahead of me, and I realize he must be on the path Riley said she was using when her assailant approached her.
I start walking again, and as I near the path, I notice picnic tables in the general area, each tucked under a different maple tree. Riley said that after being struck on the back of her head, she’d been dragged to a table. My stomach turns as I realize it might have been one of these.
The jogging path stretches both ways into the distance, but this seems to be the only spot with tables nearby. Making sure I’m not about to collide with anyone, I dart across the path.
And then, just below me, I spot the creek. The water’s only a few feet high, and clear, which means I can see down to the endless gray and black pebbles that line the bottom. I run my gaze along the bank. There’s a gentle slope from where I’m standing, meaning someone could scramble down easily enough, perhaps even with their shorts below their knees.
The creek is barely moving, though, which makes me wonder why her attacker hadn’t followed her down the embankment and dragged her back onto shore. Surely he would have done anything to keep her from escaping and later identifying him.
But on that Sunday night eight years ago, the creek had been full and moving fast, Riley said, and she was carried off by the current. Her assailant might have assumed he’d never catch her. Maybe he didn’t know how to swim and was afraid of being carried off himself.
As I start to retrace my steps, I catch sight again of the nearest picnic table. Against my will, I’m seeing Riley on the table, clawing at the leash around her neck. And then, to my horror, I’m picturing Mel as well—with the life being strangled out of her.
I race back to the park entrance, and when the Uber app shows that a car will take fifteen minutes to get here, I phone Cartersville Taxi, and the owner, Craig, handles the order this time, too.
“I’ll be there in five,” he says, and thankfully he is. I nearly hurl myself into the back seat.
“You been checkin’ out the local sights?” he asks once we’re moving.
“Sort of ...” I say, trying to settle my mind. “Do—do you know much about the water here?”
“Pebble Creek? I know it as well as anyone, I guess. I fish it for rock bass, but farther upstream, where it’s not as populated.”
“It looks really low right now.”
“Ha, just how I like it. That way you can see the holes where the bass are hidin’.”
“But does it get much higher sometimes—and move really fast? So fast that it could carry someone away?”
